New Delhi: Seven persons, including four women, were killed and over 30 injured after a powerful bomb exploded at Pourabi in Imphal East district on Sunday evening.
The explosive device was planted on the roadside and was triggered off when a passenger bus passed the area at around 1745 hours IST, police said.
Several of the injured are in a critical condition and the death toll may rise, they added. All the injured were rushed to the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital.
"The militants must have placed the landmine targeting Army vehicles, but the civilian bus went over it," a senior intelligence officer in Imphal told Reuters by telephone.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack as yet. Manipur has 19 active insurgent groups, almost all of them seeking separate homelands.
No major insurgent group in Manipur has entered into a ceasefire with the government unlike their counterparts in neighbouring Nagaland.
